in his power, to attend to them. We hear nothing of them. Alone, and depending, it must be supposed, on his influence with the national guard and people of Paris, and his own friends and the friends of the constitution in the Assembly and out, on the morning of the 28th he appeared there alone, the representative of the army, and, as no doubt, he very sincerely believed, of the liberties and best interests of France.

In spite of all the denunciations that every day had been made against him, since his letter to the Assembly, he still retained popularity enough to determine the applauses in his favour, and to reduce his enemies to silence. Scarcely had he appeared, when the tribunes that afterwards hooted down every one who spoke in his defence, resounded with the most enthusiastic acclamations.

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'My presence here," said he, "does not at all compromise the safety of our armies. The outrages committed at the palace on the 20th have excited the alarm of all good citizens. I have received addresses from the different corps of my army, officers, subalterns, and soldiers, who, on this occasion, are one man: all have in their addresses expressed their detestation of the factions.

"I have engaged to them to convey to you the sentiment common to all; a sentiment I cannot but approve. Already do they ask, whether it is liberty that they are defending. It is high time to guarantee the constitution from all attacks, as well as the freedom of the Assembly and of the king; their independence, and their dignity. I supplicate the Assembly to order the authors and instigators of the 20th of June to be prosecuted as men guilty of high treason; to destroy a party, whose public debates leave no doubt of their evil intentions. I supplicate the Assembly also, in my own name and in the name of all honourable men, to take proper measures to make the constituted Assemblies respected, and to keep the armies assured that no injury shall happen to the constitution from within, while they are shedding their blood in defence of it against the enemies from without."

Such was the spirited and manly address of La Fayette. The spectators continued to applaud with enthusiasm. One part of the Assembly applauded also; silence was observed by the other and it was Gaudet (the Girondist) who at last arose, to turn, if possible, the current of public opinion, which was thus running so strongly in favour of the general.

"When the arrival of M. La Fayette," said he,

was an

nounced to me, how agreeable were all my first reflections! Our enemies then, I thought to myself, have disappeared; the Austrians are vanquished. But this illusion has been of short duration: our enemies are still the same; no change has taken place in our situation without; and yet M. La Fayette is in Paris. What motives can have been strong enough to bring him here? Our intestine disorders? He fears then that the National Assembly has not the power to repress them. He constitutes himself the organ of his army and of honourable men. And these honourable men, whence are they? And this army, how is it that it has been deliberating? I do not now examine, whether he who now accuses us of seeing in the wishes of the brigands who surround us, the wishes of the French nation, may not himself, in the wishes of the Etat Major, by which he is himself surrounded, see the wishes of the whole army. I do not examine this point, but I say this, that he himself forgets the constitution, when he makes himself the organ of honourable men, who have given him no mission of the kind; and that he violates the constitution if he has quitted his post without leave from the ministers. I demand, therefore, in the first place, that the minister of war should be interrogated to know, whether he has or has not given this leave, and that our extraordinary commission of the 12th should to-morrow make a report on the danger of allowing to generals the right of petitioning.'

This able attack made on La Fayette, and in his presence, was followed by the most lively sensation. Gaudet was applauded in the loudest manner by his own side of the assembly, and in the tribunes. The most violent agitation ensued; but it was at this moment that Ramond, the former secretary and intimate friend of La Fayette, was not forgetful of the duty which on every account he owed him. 66 "said he, Such,' are the peculiar circumstances of our situation, so great are now the dangers of liberty, that it may well be doubted whether most are to be dreaded, our enemies without, or our enemies within. In a crisis like this, it is not every one who will express himself with the same courage. It is quite necessary, that the same voice which France has been so accustomed to recognise in her moments of difficulty, should now be heard once more. M. La Fayette then denounces to you the real enemies of the public weal. Faithful to the law, he has stayed the expression of the wishes of his army, an army that, though ready to sacrifice itself for the constitution, can sacrifice itself for no other object but the

constitution; and he comes himself to announce their sentiments and his own, and to avow a letter, on the authenticity of which there are those who have affected to throw doubts. The life of M. La Fayette has been only one continued series of combats with tyrannies of every description. To the Revolution he has devoted his life and his very existence. You who murmur, do you render the same services to your country, and you will then have the same right that he has to be heard." Ramond, after this timely and skilful address, demanded that the petition of the general should be referred to the committee, who might charge itself with finding the proper remedies for the disorganization which had been denounced both in the letter and in the petition.

The Assembly was now divided into its two great parties, the Feuillans and their opponents, and both were highly excited. One clamoured for the motion of Gaudet, the other for that of Ramond. The appel nominal was called for, probably that the violent party might mark out their opponents for the assaults of the populace; and in the result the motion was carried in favour of La Fayette by three hundred and thirtynine to two hundred and thirty-four, about three to two. With this decision in his favour, and at the same time with this opposition of the violent party publicly expressed against him, the question was, what was La Fayette now to do? The Girondists had taken their part, a part most disgraceful to them; they had entirely turned aside from him and the constitution; they had entirely adopted the Jacobins and the proceedings of the 20th of June. What measure was there left, but to put down the whole of this combined party by force, shut up the hall of the Jacobins, put an end to the domination that was exercised over the Assembly, and call upon all good Frenchmen to support the majority there that was still faithful to the constitution, and averse to these counsels of insurrection and blood; what measure was left but this? But where was the force to carry it into execution? It is at this moment that is seen the perverse conduct of the court, or rather the inveterate nature of its prejudices; and again, the objectionable nature of the projects in which the king had been lately, and was at that very time, engaged.

The queen and the court could never endure La Fayette, as having been the first great mover and origin of the Revolution; the cause, as he thought, of the liberties of his country, but a cause with which they unfortunately had no sympathy. The

king, in the mean time, as you have seen, had committed himself on the subject of the constitution to the allied powers, in the instructions he had given to Mallet du Pan, and was no longer at liberty, even if he had been disposed, on account of any such object as the constitution, to have united himself to La Fayette; not even though La Fayette was endeavouring to accomplish the great point of all others, to be most desired, the overthrow of the Girondists and the Jacobins. On the whole, the court must be considered as now preferring the chance of the invasion of the allied powers, and the king the chance of some mediation between them and the people of France; that is, the chance of better terms than the constitution offered. This must, I think, be supposed the line of policy that was now adopted. It was one full of danger, and, on the whole, a mistake; but with the expectation that was then so generally entertained of the certain success of the allied powers, a mistake not unnatural.

The Marquis de Ferrieres expresses himself at this point of the history in the following manner :

"La Fayette obtained the honours of the sitting, and took his place amid the acclamations of his partisans. This barren advantage, far from contributing to give any new strength or consequence to the Constitutional party, had no effect but to hasten its fate, and with it the fate of La Fayette.

"The Girondists and the Orleanists, who were apprehensive of the consequences of his stay in Paris, denounced him at their clubs, intrigued in the faubourgs, and were raising the populace in insurrection against him. The national guard was divided; the grenadiers and the chasseurs declared in his favour, and conducted him, at the close of the sitting, in triumph to his hotel. This was enough to strike terror into the Girondists and Orleanists; and if the court and the people attached to the king had but resolved to support La Fayette, there was force to have annihilated the two factions. But the queen recoiled from every idea of owing her safety to a man whom she had determined to ruin. He was, however, well received. The king expressed his acknowledgments for the interest he had taken in his favour, as did the queen; but they refused to enter into his views, and they thus rejected the only means of safety that Providence offered them.

"Inexplicable blindness," continues the historian, "if an explanation were not affordod by the approaching entry of the foreign troops, and the confidence reposed in them."

Such is the representation of the Marquis de Ferrieres, of the order of the nobility in the Constituent Assembly, and though a candid and reasonable, yet decided royalist.

The account given by the historian Toulongeon is as follows: "Retired to his hotel, La Fayette set himself to consider what was the force of which he could avail himself. A review of the first division of the national guard, commanded by Aclogue, was fixed for the next morning at break of day; the king was to pass along the line, and La Fayette was then to harangue the troop. But the mayor, Pétion, was advertised of their movements by the queen (this is scarcely credible), who feared the success of La Fayette even more than that of the Jacobins; and a counter order was given, and the review did not take place.

"La Fayette then assembled at his hotel all the national guards he could collect. Great movements, however, required great room, and so the Champs Elysées were fixed upon as the place, and the evening as the time for a fresh muster. But scarcely one hundred men appeared, and an adjournment was then agreed upon to the next day, when, if the number reached three hundred, they were to march against the hall of the Jacobins; but there came scarcely thirty. Their proceedings were just enough to save La Fayette from being arrested himself. He saw the king, who thanked him, but profited not of his offers of service. "He returned to his army, left a letter for the Assembly, and had done," says the historian, "on this occasion everything that became him, but had neither the time nor the means to do what the public service required. From this moment his destruction was resolved on by the Jacobins, and he was burnt in effigy at the Palais Royal the very evening of his departure."

Such is the reasonable account of Toulongeon.

Bertrand de Moleville is unfeeling and unjust enough to describe the affair in the following terms :

"M. La Fayette was at first loudly applauded, and the Assembly granted him the honours of the sitting; but he had scarcely taken his seat, when his conduct was reprehended with the greatest vehemence by several members, and particularly by Gaudet and Vergniaud:

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They censured him for quitting his post without leave, and coming merely for the purpose of intimidating the Legislative Body by indecent threats in the name of his army, and they even insinuated that there were grounds for decreeing his impeachment.

"At these violent declamations, which were applauded by

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